Analysis
and Interpretation

A masterpiece of the Renaissance
in Florence, and the first non-religious nude since classical
antiquity, The Birth of Venus (Nascita di Venere) belongs
to the group of mythological pictures painted by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510)
in the 1480s, following his return from Rome after completing three fresco
paintings in the Sistine Chapel for Pope Sixtus IV. The other mythological
works include Pallas and the Centaur (c.1482, Uffizi Gallery, Florence),
Venus and Mars (1483, National Gallery, London), and La
Primavera (1484-6, Uffizi). Like these works, The Birth of
Venus (1484-86) remains one of the profound treasures of the Florentine
Renaissance. The work, painted with tempera on canvas, depicts the
female nude figure of the goddess Venus standing on dry land having emerged
from the sea. It was commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-92)
of the Medici
Family, whose quattrocento
humanist circle was particularly interested in classical mythology, and
marks the culmination of the revival of ancient myths, within the context
of a humanistic Renaissance art.
A perfect example of the type of picture targeted by the Dominican monk
Savonarola, in his virulent
4-year campaign against profanity and frivolity (1494-8), the painting
miraculously survived the monk's "bonfire of the vanities" in
1497. This, despite its obviously pagan narrative and the fact it contained
one of the first full length female
nudes since the classical era. This good fortune enables us to enjoy
one of the greatest
Renaissance paintings by one of the most stylish of early
Renaissance artists.

Venus

According to the classical poet Hesiod,
Venus was conceived when Chronus castrated his father, the God Uranus,
whose severed organs fertilized the sea. But Botticelli received additional
inspiration from the Florentine poet, humanist and classical scholar Angelo
Poliziano (1454-94), protege of Lorenzo Medici, who wrote about this scene
in his epic poem "Stanze per la Giostra". He described Venus
as being driven towards the shore on a shell by Zephyrus, god of the wind,
while the Horae of the seasons stood on the shore in white, flowing garments.

No doubt Botticelli borrowed from these
and other accounts. At any rate, The Birth of Venus depicts the
moment when, having emerged from the sea in a shell, Venus lands at Paphos
in Cyprus. She is blown towards the shore by Zephyrus - god of the winds
- and the breeze Aura, while a Hora of Spring stands on dry land poised
to wrap a cloak, decorated with spring flowers, around Venus to cover
her nudity. A wistful gaze under heavy eyelids lends the goddess an air
of cool distance. The fine modelling and white flesh colour gives her
the appearance of a statue, an impression fortified by her stance which
derives from the
sculpture of ancient Greece - in effect, a more fluid version of the
Medici Venus (Venus Pudica) (1st century CE, Uffizi Gallery,
Florence) - a medium which was highly regarded in Florence at the time.
Despite the slightly unusual dimensions of her body - the elongated neck
and her overlong left arm - Botticelli's Venus is an incredibly beautiful
woman with smooth, delicate skin and golden curls. She is born to the
world as the goddess of beauty, and the viewer is witness to this act
of creation. As she lifts a foot to step off her gilded shell, the winds
shower her with roses - each with a golden heart (according to mythology
the rose flowered for the first time when Venus was born) - while the
orange blossom on the tree in the middle ground is also fringed with gold.

Neoplatonic Interpretation

According to the ancient Greek philosopher
Plato, Venus had two aspects: she was an earthly goddess who inspired
humans to physical love, but on the other hand she was a celestial goddess
who inspired humans to intellectual love. Plato also argued that contemplation
of physical beauty enabled the human mind to comprehend spiritual beauty.
This means that when 15th-century Neo-Platonic viewers looked at The
Birth of Venus they would have felt themselves being inspired to contemplate
spiritual (that is, divine) love. If this sounds somewhat airy-fairy,
note that The Birth of Venus and other similar works by Botticelli
and others are now being seen as wedding paintings that recommend suitable
behaviours for bride and groom.

Other Interpretations

The Birth of Venus has attracted
a number of other explanations from a variety of scholars, historians
and related experts. The painting was inspired by a Homeric hymn published
in Florence in 1488 by the Greek writer Demetrios Chalcondyles; it was
associated with Venus Anadyomene (Venus Rising from the Sea), a
lost masterpiece of the artist, Apelles, mentioned by the classical historian
Pliny the Elder.

Medici Connection

Another explanation is that the painting
was executed to flatter Lorenzo de' Medici, the powerful head of the Medici
clan. The image of Venus in this picture (and also in La Primavera)
is supposedly modelled on the stunning Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci, the
alleged mistress of both Giuliano de' Medici and his elder brother Lorenzo.
After all, was it mere coincidence that Simonetta was born in the Italian
coastal town of Portovenere (in English: the port of Venus)? Associating
Lorenzo's mistress with Venus, triggered a number of other references,
culminating in the equation of Lorenzo with Alexander the Great - a not
unflattering comparison.

Christian Interpretation

The nudity of Venus echoes that of Eve
in the Garden of Eden. This has led some commentators to speculate that
Venus is a personification of the Christian Church. One should note, for
instance, that the title of the Virgin Mary is "stella maris":
star of the sea. Perhaps the sea gives birth to Venus just as the Madonna
gives birth to Jesus Christ.

Painterly Methods: Gothic Meets Renaissance

Botticelli trained first as a goldsmith
before being apprenticed to Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-69), the finest painter
in Florence at the time, and noted in particular for his linear style
of painting, his decorative motifs and pale lighting - a style, in short,
which owed a great deal to the elegance and ornamentation of International
Gothic art. Like his master, Botticelli was never fully reconciled
to naturalism, either as
a means or an end. Thus unlike contemporaries such as Domenico
Ghirlandaio (1449-94) or northerners like Andrea
Mantegna (1431-06), he rarely gave weight and volume to his figures,
and maintained a narrow perspectival space. Thus the figure of Venus (like
her counterpart in La Primavera), has an elongated neck and torso,
while her classical contrapposto stance is gravitationally impossible.
In short, realism is not high on Botticelli's agenda. He prefers to depict
Renaissance humanism using the decorative aesthetics
of the Byzantine tradition.
(Compare the more naturalist contemporary painting Virgin
of the Rocks 1484-6, by Leonardo.) Thus he highlights her hair
with gold leaf, as well as the shell and orange trees, and contrasts the
milk-like purity of her skin with the richly decorated draperies of the
proffered wrap. The combination of cutting-edge humanism and Byzantine/Gothic
decoration makes The Birth of Venus one of the greatest
paintings of the Italian Renaissance.

Savonarola and Botticelli's Breakdown

For years Savonarola had criticized Lorenzo
de Medici for corrupting the people with music, plays, art, and other
"vanities' of life. After Lorenzo's untimely death in 1492, Savonarola
and his followers succeeded in seizing control of the city government,
whereupon the Medici were immediately banished from the city. After this,
Savonarola maintained a four-year reign of fanaticism and terror. Botticelli
himself was so influenced by Savonarola's sermons that he suffered a nervous
breakdown - caused by guilt at painting pagan, mythological works - and
even abandoned fine art painting
for a while. The peak of Savonarola's power was reached in 1497. During
the carnival that preceded the Lenten season, his followers built a huge
7-storey pyre in the Piazza
della Signoria, containing thousands of "vanity items"
including books, paintings, sculpture, mirrors, cards, dice, jewellery,
and other objects. The painters Fra
Bartolommeo and Lorenzo di Credi even brought their own paintings
to this "Bonfire of the Vanities", around which monks and citizens
performed a frenzied dance. Despite Savonarola's excommunication and execution
in 1498, Botticelli's painting became noticeably more Christian and more
spiritual. The phase of his glorious humanist expressionism, which so
enriched Early
Renaissance painting in Florence, was over.

Further Resources

For more information on Italian quattrocento
art, visit these resources: